Where God Left His Shoes Review
By David Kempler
Second Hand Shoes with a Little Shine Left
The tough guy who grew up in the hardscrabble streets of the big city is a common character in cinema. Christmas movies are spewed out by Hollywood like snow coming out of a blower at a ski slope. "Where God Left His Shoes" combines the two scenarios in a paint-by–numbers story that somehow still manages to work, at least more than might have been expected.
Frank Diaz (John Leguizamo) is a not very-talented-boxer whose heart in the ring is also of questionable strength. When his big match at Madison Square Garden is canceled, he is out of options and money. The slow descent begins with a flickering light in the apartment he shares with his wife, Angela (Leonor Varela), his tweenage son, Justin (David Castro), and the even younger Christina, (Samantha Rose). The light is flickering because they haven't paid the electric bill. Soon enough they are in the street and living in a shelter.
Finally, after three months, an apartment becomes available to the family. The catch is that he must be employed by 6PM in order to qualify to move in. The quest for a job begins in earnest. Frank and Justin hit the streets while the women-folk wait. Along the way they run into a possible solution but they don't know it. The solution is a nice man who wants to and can help but he cannot locate them.
"Where God Left His Shoes" is an average, ordinary Christmas film but it has a few things working for it that manage to save it from being a total waste of time. John Leguizamo does a believable job as the father desperately trying to hold his family together against near-insurmountable odds. While his wife and daughter are merely window dressing, his son (David Castro) is either a very gifted young actor or his lines are written with just the right amount of reality to make him seem like a genuine kid rather than some overly precocious little tyke. Whatever the reality, Leguizamo and Castro save the day with their father-son interaction and the result is satisfying, if not exciting. Writer/director Salvatore Stabile drives the train well and he gets extra credit for not going for the home run at the end. Whether or not their four pairs of shoes will make it to a home or not is up in the air but they aren't going to quit.
